Both Zacharias and Elizabeth were of the priestly race, and he himself was a priest of the course of Abia, and she was of the daughters of Aaron. Both, too, were devout persons, walking in the commandments of God, and waiting for the fulfillment of His promise to Israel. But in the midst of the glorious revelations the angel had made, strange to say, Zacharias had asked for some sign or confirmation of the glad tidings. The angel answered, “I am Gabriel” (the Might of God) “and, behold, thou shalt be dumb.” As faith is to be the chief condition of the new covenant, it was needful that the first manifestation of unbelief should be emphatically punished, but the wound inflicted becomes a healing medicine to the soul. The aged priest was constrained to much silent reflection, and, according to the counsel of God, the secret was still kept for a time. There is here a remarkable coincidence between Zacharias and Abraham on the one side, and Elizabeth and Sarah on the other; not only in the fact of their lack of an heir during so many years, but also in the frame of mind in which they at length received the heavenly message. In these parallel histories, the man of the olden times is strong in the faith, the woman weak; while under the new covenant it is the man whose faith falters. On the very threshold of the new dispensation woman, in the person of Elizabeth, takes her place in the foreground by the heroism of a living faith. It is also quite in keeping with Divine wisdom that in this case unbelief in view of the rising sun of the gospel salvation is much more severely punished than under the old dispensation. [Illustration: THE ANGEL’S MESSAGE.] The sight of Zacharias struck dumb awakened among the people an expectation of some great and heavenly event; soon will “the things” done in the priest’s house be “noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea,” and the voice of “him that crieth” shall soon resound over hill and valley.